From: fedora@fea.st   
      
   Over the last 10 years, the terms of political debate have changed   
   completely – and week by week they seem to get worse   
      
   Zoe Williams   
   Wed 11 Feb 2026 10.57 GMT   
      
   "The notion of virtue-signalling – the act of performing progressive   
   stances that don’t cost you anything in order to burnish your own   
   moral credentials – has been around since at least the 00s. In a   
   political sense, it meant always being the one who reminded others to   
   say “chairperson” not “chairman”; always manning the barricades for   
   signs of bigotry, always being on the right demo. If its values were   
   sound – all we’re talking about, really, is trying to systematise   
   courtesy to others – it was often easy to lampoon, because it felt   
   performative and had a hair-trigger.   
      
   But what has risen in its wake – vice-signalling – cannot be seen as   
   its mirror or answer, any more than dehumanisation could be seen as   
   the equal and opposite of decency. They’re not in the same rhetorical   
   category. The term doesn’t bring itself to life; for that you need the   
   US president. Cast your mind back to 2015; although Donald Trump had   
   said he might run for election to the highest office in every cycle   
   this century, his speech in Trump Tower was his first campaign launch,   
   and it was where he announced that he would build a wall between the   
   US and Mexico. In seemingly unplanned remarks – the grammar was off,   
   the structure meandered, the vocabulary was vague and repetitive – he   
   said “[Mexico] are sending people that have lots of problems, and they   
   are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and   
   bringing crime, and they’re rapists.”   
      
      
   This is classic vice-signalling, breaking taboos in this case both   
   general (against hate speech) and more specific (against falsely   
   associating base or criminal traits with a race or ethnic group). He   
   was signalling that he was prepared to go there – say what the   
   establishment would not allow, and therefore assert himself as a   
   politician who is authentic and courageous, who cannot be muzzled. The   
   video he posted last Thursday of the Obamas depicted as apes, a trope   
   so racist it was breathtaking, did not come out of nowhere. Trump and   
   his allies have been signalling the vice of racial hatred for more   
   than a decade, and each new event punches out the space for the next,   
   worse signal."   
   --   
   Noah Sombrero mustachioed villain   
   Don't get political with me young man   
   or I'll tie you to a railroad track and   
   <<>> to <<>>   
   Who dares to talk to El Sombrero?   
   dares: Ned   
   does not dare: Julian  shrinks in horror and warns others away   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)